Details
HARDING, Warren G. Typed letter signed ("Warren G. Harding"), as President, to Richard Washburn Child, Washington, 24 July 1922. 2¼ pages, 4to, White House stationery, marked "Personal."
"BEING PRESIDENT IS RATHER AN UNATTRACTIVE BUSINESS"
A remarkable, very frank letter about Harding's disillusionment with high office. The President shows a firm resistance to what Harry Truman would later call "Potomac Fever." "Frankly," Harding tells Child, "being President is rather an unattractive business, unless one relishes the exercise of power. That is a thing which has never greatly appealed to me, except that I might use it temperately and be of some use to fellow humanity. Criticism, even the excess of it, does not greatly disturb me. There is always ample compensation in the consciousness that one is doing the best that he can."
He looks forward to meeting with Child, the American ambassador to Rome, and wants "to relate to you some of my preconceptions of the Presidency and compare them with convictions that have come to me since I am in office." The "most amusing thing," he says, is the way so many high ranking political figures will pledge their support to the President's plans, but then "turn about face when asked to get down to details and support the program with the responsibility of power. I still think I would rather be an ambassador than President." He muses wistfully about how delightful it would be to live in Rome, yet even here he senses disillusionment: "Probably I should be a very poor ambassador." Harding also makes several comments about labor and industrial strife, and the lingering economic problems caused by (as he sees it) the Great War and "the former President and his first Secretary of the Treasury." A rich, lengthy, and revealing letter on the impact of the Presidency on Harding's mind.
"BEING PRESIDENT IS RATHER AN UNATTRACTIVE BUSINESS"
A remarkable, very frank letter about Harding's disillusionment with high office. The President shows a firm resistance to what Harry Truman would later call "Potomac Fever." "Frankly," Harding tells Child, "being President is rather an unattractive business, unless one relishes the exercise of power. That is a thing which has never greatly appealed to me, except that I might use it temperately and be of some use to fellow humanity. Criticism, even the excess of it, does not greatly disturb me. There is always ample compensation in the consciousness that one is doing the best that he can."
He looks forward to meeting with Child, the American ambassador to Rome, and wants "to relate to you some of my preconceptions of the Presidency and compare them with convictions that have come to me since I am in office." The "most amusing thing," he says, is the way so many high ranking political figures will pledge their support to the President's plans, but then "turn about face when asked to get down to details and support the program with the responsibility of power. I still think I would rather be an ambassador than President." He muses wistfully about how delightful it would be to live in Rome, yet even here he senses disillusionment: "Probably I should be a very poor ambassador." Harding also makes several comments about labor and industrial strife, and the lingering economic problems caused by (as he sees it) the Great War and "the former President and his first Secretary of the Treasury." A rich, lengthy, and revealing letter on the impact of the Presidency on Harding's mind.